Generally, water purifiers include various types of filters such as a precipitation filter, a carbon filter, a membrane filter, etc. connected and installed thereinside depending on use thereof to allow water to go through a physical or chemical process to be purified while passing through filters.
Filters described above have a structure in which an inlet into which water is injected and an outlet through which water is discharged are formed in a head of a filter and coupled with connection pipes to be connected with many water purifying filters to purify and supply water supplied form a water source to a water tank of a water purifier.
Meanwhile, Korean Patent Application No. 10-2005-0020547, filed by the present applicant, discloses a water purifier filter having a means of fluid interception, capable of cutting off original water without an additional original water cut-off valve outside a purifier to provide aesthetic advantages and convenience in use.
FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram of a water purifier which includes a plurality of water purifying filters installed therein according to a conventional art.
As shown in the drawing, in the conventional water purifier, a preprocessing precipitation filter 1, a pre carbon filter 2, a membrane filter 3, a post carbon filter 4, etc. are mounted thereon to be used.
Here, the precipitation filter 1 provides a function of preliminarily filtering foreign substances such as sand, heavy metals, etc. included in water, the pre carbon filter 2 provides a function of adsorbing and removing a chlorine chemical, trihalomethane, organic chemicals, etc. dissolved in the water, the membrane filter 3 is a core filter of the water purifier and provides a function of finally filtering foreign substances formed of heavy metals, viruses, bacteria, organic chemicals using a reverse osmosis concentration method through a high precision semipermeable membrane, and the post carbon filter 4 provides a function of filtering gas ingredients and odor ingredients dissolved in the water.
The respective filters 1, 2, 3, and 4 which provide various functions described above need to occasionally remove a body from a filter head to clean an inside of a filter or replace a filter membrane for each certain period while used.
However, since a flow of the water is automatically cut off when one of the plurality of filters connected to be used is removed from the head, the conventional water purifier is not used. Also, when a user temporarily turns off water, water inside the filters flows back and contaminates original water.
To overcome problems described above, Korean Patent Application No. 10-2011-0043763, filed by the present applicant, discloses a filter head for a water purifying filter capable of preventing backflow in which the head of the water purifying filter having a bypass function and a backflow prevention means are integrally formed in such a way that even though a filter is separated from the head, it is possible to use a water purifier and simultaneously to prevent contamination of original water.
However, in the case of the conventional filter head having the backflow preventing function, since respective flow channels formed below a pipe body which forms an inlet and an outlet are linearly formed, installation and disassembling are difficult and fastening is not strong due to high water pressure when a filter is replaced.
Accordingly, a technology of proving a practical and applicable filter assembly capable of not only forming a bypass flow channel but also easily installing and disassembling a filter even though a metal spring installed inside the flow channel of the filter head connected to the inlet and outlet is removed.